Monday, August 27, 2012

WHY AND HOW THE BOARD MADE ITS DECISION IS NOT MY STORY TO TELL: Many here had expressed misgivings about Joe Posnanski's hot-off-the-presses biography of Joe Paterno. Based on Stefan Fatsis' review on Slate, as well as the other reviews to which he links (and in particular, Allen Barra's), your concerns were well-placed:

Posnanski has said he wrote “the most honest book” he could. But that doesn’t make Paterno the right book. Posnanski is determined to show the redemptive side of Paterno. That’s admirable, and fair; Paterno was more than the Sandusky case, and more than what happened in the few months before he died.... Every anecdote about Paterno’s good character, every testimonial to his tough love (and there are dozens) feels like a calculated rebuttal to the accusations that he wasn’t aware enough or caring enough or vigilant enough when it mattered most—that he will be perceived forever by many as a hypocrite who said that football should be secondary to morality and ethics and a life well-lived but, at the moment that will define him, didn’t practice what he preached.

My parents were in Rome in July 1980 and saw Paterno with a woman who most definitely was not his wife. My Dad, a Kentucky alumni and die hard fan, recognized Paterno and called out, "Hey, Coach!" Paterno and his friend looked aghast - like deer in headlights, the story goes. They turned tail and literally ran. The woman ran straight into a street light or a statue or something and came away with a bloody lip.

I cannot emphasize how much my mother, now an 80 year-old widow who misses my Dad terribly, enjoys telling that story. Bottom line? Paterno was not a nice person.

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